Hold On

I watch the ocean of my life pass before me. I see wave after wave crest the shore. I brace myself for the familiar pain that I can not seem to escape. Everyday I am reminded of loss and a feeling of being broken and held together with only the faintest amount of glue. Every day that crack opens again and the emotion that has been damned up runs free and no amount of protest will hold back the flood that breaks through the patch formed over my heart. I reach for the closest object and hold on tight and brace for the moment of impact. A moment that will remind me that healing is a continued process that can not be rushed, denied or ignored. So I stand tall and firm and roll with wave after wave just waiting to resurface and catch my breath once more knowing that it is only a matter of time until the next set hits. 

I am not a stranger to pain and suffering. I deal with physical pain every moment of my life and emotional pain has come and gone only to return when I least expect it. The physical pain is something I have accepted and wear it as a badge of strength and courage everyday of my life. I struggle but I persevere at the exact same moment I am in the depths of agony. For this I am proud of. Medicine makes it ever so bearable and allows me to continue to look forward to the next day in hopes that tomorrow will be so much easier than today. However, the emotional pain takes my breath away and feelings of loss and fear can not be treated with medicine, only with the patience of passing time. It is in the darkest hours of life I find myself smothered in emotional defeat reminded of what has come and what has gone. It is here that I am at a loss for words and long for the darkness to subside and for my  heart to fill with hope and love once more.

Everyday I am reminded of where I was this time last year and what this passing year has dealt me. I have had heartbreak that I never thought existed. I have longed for sleep to take me into the next month just so I could wake up at the end of this chapter in my life, scratched and bruised but on the mend. The more I longed for that moment the more I was reminded that recovery takes patience and time when you are physically and emotionally healing. Everyday I remind myself that I have plenty of time.

Today for a brief moment I felt what I have been longing for over the last year, a moment that made me sit up and take notice. Today the hurt was a little less than yesterday. Songs are no longer taking me back in time to a moment in the past. New adventures no longer remind me of the old. Memories of the here and now are becoming more prevalent in my life. For once in a long time I long for the future, not to escape the pain but to enjoy the pleasures of everyday life and those who share it with me. The sadness of yesterday is fading and thoughts of the past no longer leave me powerless but instead give me strength to carry on just as I am. I know the waves will continue to roll in and I must be prepared for the pain but it will lessen more and more everyday until the past no longer haunts me but occasionally reminds me of someone I used to know. So, until the waves have calmed I may as well make the best of a situation and learn to surf through life's waves with two feet steady on a solid foundation of self acceptance and love.